A panel on the need for judges who bring a wide variety of life experiences to the bench presented by Alliance for Justice.

This event is cosponsored by the American Association for Justice, American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, Brennan Center for Justice, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Justice at Stake, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Legal Progress at the Center for American Progress, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Council of Jewish Women, National Employment Lawyers Association, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and People for the American Way Foundation.

Nan Aron

A leading voice in public interest law for over 30 years, Nan Aron is President of the Alliance for Justice, a national association of public interest and civil rights organizations. Nan, who founded the Alliance in 1979, guides the organization in its mission to advance the cause of justice for all Americans, strengthen the public interest community's influence on national policy and foster the next generation of advocates.
In 1985, Nan founded the Alliance's Judicial Selection Project, now the country's premier voice for a fair and independent judiciary and a major player in the often-controversial judicial nominations process. Notable accomplishments include helping to defeat Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987; supporting the nomination of Roger Gregory, the first African American judge in the Fourth Circuit, in 2001; and organizing the effort that helped support ten Senate filibusters against President George W. Bush's most extreme judicial nominees.

Nancy Gertner

Judge Nancy Gertner is a graduate of Barnard College and Yale Law School where she was an editor on The Yale Law Journal. She received her M.A. in Political Science at Yale University. She has been an instructor at Yale Law School, teaching sentencing and comparative sentencing institutions, since 1998. She was appointed to the bench in 1994 by President Clinton.

Sherrilyn Ifill

An outspoken national commentator on civil rights issues, Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and member of the OSI-Baltimore Board and the Open Society Foundations' U. S. Programs Board, will discuss the opportunity for equity and justice to become a reality.

Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren, a fearless consumer advocate who has made her life's work the fight for middle class families, was elected to the United States Senate on November 6, 2012, by the people of Massachusetts.